Lawsuit on Immigrant's Rights Settled

A lawsuit regarding the treatment of suspected illegal immigrants in a downtown Los Angeles detention center was settled this week in a federal court.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California claimed in April that the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement held people alleged to be illegal immigrants in an overcrowded and unsanitary detention center in B-18, the basement of a federal building, the Associated Press reports. Prosecutors alleged that the holding room was occupied by more than 200 individuals at once, and provided no water source.

The new agreement, which applies to B-18 and runs until June 2010, restricts the detention of any individual at the facility to 12 hours increments, barring unusual circumstances, and requires that detainees be given access to soap, attorneys, and writing materials.

Ahilan Arulanantham, director of immigrants' rights at the ACLU told the news source that the recent agreement is an "important [step] in correcting our severely broken immigration detention system nationwide." He added that this progress "restores detainees' dignity and their right to due process."

The Center for Immigration Studies reports that as of 2007, immigrants represent 1 in every 8 U.S. citizens.